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Cut agent response times in half with parallel sub-agents in LangGraph, plus the failure modes that'll bite you in production.

Improper output handling is one of the most overlooked LLM security risks. This post demonstrates how prompt injection can generate executable payloads and how layered defenses prevent real-world exploits.

You already test. You open the browser, click around, verify the button works. That's a test—it's just trapped in your head. Now watch what happens when you build an AI agent: you tweak a prompt, squint at the output, decide if it's "good enough." That's an eval. The question isn't whether you do it. The question is whether you'll keep doing it by hand.

For the last 10 years, designers have been screaming "it's not about how things look, it's about how things work." The design community got the message. Nobody else did. And with agents, it doesn't matter, because there's no interface to design anymore. The forcing function is gone. What's left is ambiguity, partial information, and systems that need to infer intent from "Book me a flight to Detroit next Tuesday, afternoon, aisle seat." That's still a design problem. We just need a new word for it.

Focused has opened a London office to support enterprises moving AI agents from experimentation into real, production-grade systems. As organizations shift from demos to deployment, Focused is expanding into EMEA to help teams integrate, operate, and observe agentic systems inside the software they already rely on.

For fifty years, we designed interfaces to help humans talk to computers. Now AI agents can talk to computers for us. So what happens to design?

Most AI projects never make it past the demo phase. The gap between a flashy prototype and a production system that handles real enterprise workloads is vast—and that's exactly what LangChain was built to bridge. As one of LangChain's only boutique partners, we've spent years helping Fortune 500 companies and mid-market teams build agents that actually work in production. This isn't about another framework tutorial—it's a practical guide to deploying reliable, observable, and controllable AI agents using LangChain, LangGraph, and LangSmith. If you're stuck with POCs that won't scale or demos that can't handle the complexity of your real systems, this is your roadmap from prototype to production.

The question is no longer "can we build agents?" but "how do we integrate agents into everything we already have?" After years of proof-of-concepts and experiments, 2026 marks the year agentic AI moves from the lab to the enterprise—connecting autonomous agents to CRMs, ERPs, APIs, and decades of legacy systems. The companies that win won't have the most sophisticated models; they'll be the ones that solve the hard organizational problems of integration, governance, security, and testing for non-deterministic systems. The agent won't be the product. The integration will be.

Official partnerships. Production deployments. Knowledge transfer. These are what separate great LangChain agencies from the rest. We evaluated seven top consultancies so you don't have to start from scratch.

Static prompts don’t scale. This post breaks down a LangGraph pattern using tool calling for context engineering so agents pull only the context they need, when they need it.

A practical walkthrough of using LangSmith Insights to understand real user behavior in production AI agents.

See how LangChain v1 handles structured outputs without requiring JSON in prompts, using schema-first, provider-native support for more reliable and typed responses.

LangChain just launched 1.0 along with LangGraph and major LangSmith updates, and Focused was on site for it all. Learn how these releases redefine enterprise agentic AI and why Focused, an early LangChain partner, continues to lead in building production-grade, reliable agent systems.

Discover 5 powerful LangChain features we rely on daily at Focused to build production-ready AI apps and how LangGraph ties them all together.

What does it actually take to build a working multi-agent architecture? Agustín shares lessons from his first implementation, covering agent structure, evals, and why your use case should shape the design

Learn how Focused uses LangSmith to debug, test, and scale LLM pipelines. Go beyond prompt engineering and design systems built for production.

Learn why Focused chose LangChain as our framework for building agentic systems. We break down the developer-first principles and architectural benefits that make it the right choice for production-ready AI applications.

Learn how to customize memory in LangGraph agents to create more natural, context-aware conversational AI experiences that remember past interactions.

It's time to replace the deprecated “initialize_agent” API with first‑class LangGraph nodes so you can cut latency and gain graph‑level control.

Discover how to implement a scalable, secure federated Supergraph using Netflix DGS, the Apollo Router, and CI/CD automation to build a modern data mesh platform.

Focused Lead Software Engineer Sarah Kainec breaks down AI evaluations, eval-driven development, and how tools like LangSmith and LangGraph help teams test LLMs, reduce fragility, and build production-ready agentic systems.

A look at how evolving workplace rituals, from daily standups to agent-focused Lunch & Learns, are helping teams navigate the shift toward human and AI collaboration.

Tips for testing complex React components using state, context, and controlled inputs.

What parenting twins taught me about retros, pairing, and building adaptable teams.

Agents need observability to operate with real precision. Here’s why OpenTelemetry is the key to making them truly useful in production.

A/B testing can improve decision-making and user experience. Learn how to implement it effectively, avoid common pitfalls, and keep experiments from overwhelming your code.

Learn how to significantly speed up LangChain and LangGraph agent workflows with parallel execution. A straightforward, powerful technique for faster results.

Learn how tracing completes the Observability picture beyond logs and metrics, helping developers proactively spot performance issues in distributed systems.

Focused helped a Big Three automaker tackle microservice sprawl and unify their customer experience with a federated GraphQL API.

AI is reshaping software development. Learn how leaders can navigate advocates, skeptics, and holdouts, and why pairing is the key to lasting change.

How a simple team ritual sets the stage for successful, collaborative software projects.

Bridging XP and learning science to create more resilient, collaborative, and growth-oriented software teams.

Reflecting on growth, change, and Focused's rebrand. Here’s how we’re entering 2025 more focused than ever.

Make better decisions for your company once you understand the benefits and challenges of migrating from Pivotal Cloud Foundry to Kubernetes.

Unlike traditional consultancies that create dependencies, Focused's anti-agency deprecation model is designed to elevate client teams and make us unnecessary over time.

Focused (formerly Focused Labs) unveils strategic rebrand, emphasizing its expertise in modernizing existing software systems. The Chicago-based consultancy helps established companies evolve existing technology infrastructure while maintaining operational stability.

Focused Labs CEO, Austin Vance, shares insights in Forbes on the potential effects of California's AI legislation and its impact on tech innovation.

Developing software is complicated, and picking the right methodology matters. This guide breaks down five approaches — CI/CD, Rapid Application Development, Pair Programming, Extreme Programming, and Continuous Feedback Loops — covering the pros, cons, and best applications of each to help you choose the right workflow for your team and project.

APIs are indispensable tools for companies relying on legacy systems. Rather than replacing these systems entirely, API-driven modernization lets you extend their capabilities, connect to modern platforms, and meet today's demands while preserving the backbone of your operations.

Legacy applications don't have to hold your company back. With the right modernization strategy, you can transform outdated systems into modern platforms that drive innovation — without throwing away what already works.

Micah Adams, Principal DevOps at Focused Labs, discusses the potential risks of AI model collapse and the importance of proper data management in a Techopedia article.

Check out the different types of APIs, considerations you should make before transitioning to modern APIs, and how we handle this process at Focused Labs.

Check out the advantages of RAG pipelines, the stages in a RAG implementation, and where it fits into your generative AI applications.

Learn what custom application development looks like, why it’s worth investing in it instead of an off-the-shelf solution, and how to get started.

Let’s discuss the characteristics of successful loyalty apps. We’ll cover the challenges you may encounter and how to overcome them to reach your goals.

A common use case for developing AI chat bots is ingesting PDF documents and allowing users to ask questions, inspect the documents, and learn from them. In this tutorial we will start with a 100% blank project and build an end-to-end chat application that allows users to chat about the Epic Games vs Apple Lawsuit. There's a lot of content packed into this one video so please ask questions in the comments and I will do my best to help you get past any hurdles.

Learn how to easily set up and run your own coding assistant model in the cloud using Hetzner servers, NVIDIA GPU drivers, CUDA, and Ollama. The tutorial covers essential steps, from initial server setup with SSH keys to installing necessary drivers and software. Additionally, discover how to enhance security and control by integrating TailScale VPN, managing access with UFW firewall, and exposing models to the internet with TailScale Funnel for seamless access through coding assistants like Cursor. Ideal for developers seeking to manage their own coding infrastructure with full observability and security.

There are plenty of reasons why your company may still be using a legacy system — it's the backbone of your business, it's what your team knows, and it's what your customers are familiar with. But outdated technology is costing you financially and otherwise. The good news? You don't have to scrap everything. Legacy system integration lets you interconnect old infrastructure with modern platforms to get the best of both worlds.

Worldwide digital transformation spending is projected to reach 3.9 trillion dollars by 2027. Digital transformation isn't just a fad — it's a vital business strategy. But tackling it without experienced professionals can lead to missteps that impact your company's performance and bottom line. Digital transformation consulting services help you navigate these complexities with the guidance of seasoned technology experts who know what it takes to be successful.

El A/B testing puede mejorar la toma de decisiones y la experiencia del usuario. Aprende a implementarlo de forma efectiva, evitar errores comunes y evitar que los experimentos saturen tu código.

Modern enterprises rely on a mix of best-in-class digital assets to carry out critical tasks and manage important data. However, companies don't realize the total value of these solutions because the applications don't work together or talk to each other. That's why successful digital strategies incorporate enterprise integration services to connect systems, streamline business processes, and exchange data seamlessly.

As a software consultant, I've worked on everything from fast-moving greenfield projects to deeply coupled legacy systems with many obstacles to even the smallest changes. Some interesting challenges arise when applying XP principles to legacy software. Generally, the attributes with the highest impact include taking an incremental approach, leveraging existing value, and ensuring team involvement from both sides.

Digital innovation is a critical component of success for businesses across industries. Being able to change, adapt, and come up with new ideas is a must for surviving in today's technological world. But digital innovation requires more than just adopting cutting-edge technologies — you also need a culture that encourages creativity, experimentation, and constant improvement.

A whopping 70% of large-scale digital transformation projects fail, according to research from McKinsey. That may sound like a depressing statistic, but it's valuable to go into an important project like this with clear eyes and a solid digital transformation framework in place to make sure you're in the 30%.

Learn about the benefits of AI integration, challenges you may face, and best practices for successful AI implementation in your organization.

Learn about the advantages of custom software application development, downsides to be aware of, and 9 tips for picking the best partner.

Is your organization facing technology-induced headaches? It's only becoming more complicated to keep up with rapidly evolving tech while managing multiple systems. Technology consulting addresses this constantly shifting environment, and the market is booming — valued at $48.3 billion in 2020 and expected to grow at 11.5% CAGR through 2028. The right technology consultant doesn't just bring technical knowledge, but the ability to solve underlying business issues.

The "consulting hand-off" of software projects is notorious — and for good reason. There are many horror stories of major consulting companies leaving customers with a barely functioning product and a hefty invoice. A good partner will always leave their client in a better place, whether the engagement is a two-hour meeting or a two-year cloud migration.

We are thrilled to announce a strategic partnership between Focused Labs and Honeycomb.io, marking a significant milestone in our journey to drive incremental modernization of legacy systems. This collaboration is designed to extend the exceptional white-glove experience that Honeycomb's customers have come to know and expect, combining cutting-edge observability with hands-on engineering enablement.

Focused Labs is excited to announce its strategic partnership with LangChain, a leading provider of GenAI solutions and open source. This collaboration marks a significant step in bringing cutting-edge AI technologies to the forefront of enterprise development, combining Focused Labs' lean development expertise with LangChain's AI-driven tools and frameworks.

In Part 2 of this series, we build a React and TypeScript frontend for our AI chatbot using TailwindCSS. You'll learn how to stream LLM responses to the browser with Server Sent Events, display source documents alongside AI answers, and connect it all to the LangServe backend we built in Part 1.

Let's explore a real-world example of debugging a RAG-type application. While updating our company knowledge base, I discovered that basic queries received correct answers, but follow-up questions lacked appropriate context — conversational memory had stopped working. Here's how I traced the bug step by step using a mix of traditional and AI-specific debugging techniques.

At Focused Labs, we're not only about tech — we're about making a real impact in our community. Through employee donation matching, charitable prizes, and a laptop purchase program that gives back, we've built a culture where giving is woven into everything we do. Since 2022, we've matched over $17,000 in employee donations and we're not stopping anytime soon.

Are you searching for an exceptional framework to build custom AI applications? LangChain's latest update using LangChain Expression Language (LCEL) offers streaming, async support, parallel execution, and more right out of the box. Here's how we upgraded our RAG application to use LCEL — step by step, from whiteboard to production.

The holiday season is the perfect time to dive into new technology — and this year, that means building applications with AI. There's tons of content about cool AI startups and crafting the perfect prompt, but what about actually building production apps? Let's get technical and dive into LangChain Expression Language (LCEL), a composable interface that gives you streaming, async support, and parallel execution right out of the box.

OpenAI has ventured into Retrieval Augmented Generation with its latest offering, Assistants. Think ChatGPT, but with the ability to ask it about custom information. While it doesn't yet lead the pack in creating AI-driven knowledge bases, being able to spin up a custom chatbot in a couple of hours with roughly 75% accuracy is incredible. Here's what developers should know about its capabilities and limitations.

Since the announcement of GPTs, I've been itching to create one focused on accessibility. But as I delved deeper, I realized that simply replicating existing accessibility checkers wouldn't be enough. I pivoted to building a comprehensive design assistant — one that analyzes screenshots and offers insights based on WCAG guidelines, Nielsen Norman heuristics, UX laws, and material design principles from Google and Apple.

Interested in building an AI-powered app using generative models? A common challenge is latency — users waiting up to 30 seconds before seeing AI suggestions. By leveraging OpenAI's streaming feature with Server Sent Events, we cut the wait for first content from 30 seconds down to half a second. Here are two practical tips for enhancing your AI app's user experience through effective streaming.

Stepping into the world of AI, I quickly grasped the enormous potential of domain-specific chatbots. My team and I crafted a smart AI chatbot tailored for the Focused Labs website — not just a simple chat interface, but a comprehensive "Knowledge Hub" that leverages natural-language models. Here are the top six insights I uncovered during the process, from orchestrating multiple AI models to thinking less like a programmer and more like a linguist.

Why Focused Labs love Lightning Talks and how your organization can integrate them into your events as novel team building opportunities.

In the world of technology, it's easy to be lured by the promise of a brand new system. But tales of cost overruns, schedule slippages, and features left undelivered are common regardless of industry. That's why organizations should be looking for innovative ways to maximize their existing systems — tapping into underutilized modules and reengineering key components so old systems can produce new results.

Digital modernization gets all the attention, promising new technologies and efficiencies. But all that glitters isn't gold, especially in technology. When budgets are limited and business operations can't be interrupted by a lengthy cut-over, maximizing your existing legacy systems to their full potential can be the true win-win your team has been looking for.

"What should we build next?" is the essential product management question — and one of the hardest. Here are 13 non-mainstream techniques for uncovering your next killer product or feature idea, from studying customer misbehavior and running JTBD-style interviews to leveraging extreme questions and opportunity backlogs.

No matter how long you've been in the digital transformation consulting business, getting dropped in the middle of an organization to take on a big project can be daunting. There are politics, personalities, and a lot of people to juggle. But there's also plenty of opportunity if you know where to look. Here are actionable tactics for navigating enterprise organizations and delivering the best outcomes.

AI leverages both new and existing UX patterns; learn which patterns to use when designing AI interfaces.

Chatbots like ChatGPT run on Large Language Models that use statistics to figure out what words to string together. Sometimes they're wrong — and they don't know it. Those convincing but incorrect answers are called hallucinations. So how do you deal with them? From data cleaning and prompt engineering to LLM settings and source citations, here are the practical levers you can pull to improve accuracy.

This article introduces the concept of prompt engineering — and more specifically, programmatic prompt engineering — and how it relates to building applications with Large Language Models. Small changes to an LLM prompt can have a big impact on accuracy and value. We'll show how techniques like persona matching and instructor-based prompting can dramatically improve results without relying on the end user to craft the perfect question.

Learn how to leverage LLMs to build a domain specific AI chatbot

Expert Programming does not mean you know everything, but that you know how to find the answers you need.

Mobile App Development panel discussion at RLC 2023 with Lettuce CMO Jennifer Bell: Strengthening Customer Loyalty with a Digitized Dining Experience

Read how TDD optimizes development speed, refactoring, & onboarding while providing living documentation—why code coverage alone isn't enough.

ChatGPT—6 Tips for Improving Your Coding Experience. Read one expert’s advice on how to make ChatGPT a helpful coding companion and simplify the coding process.

From Legacy API to Modern API—Read about the API development needed to support Hertz’s partnerships with Uber and Lyft.

Product-market fit best practices: Desirability, Viability, Feasibility, and Strategic Fit deliver value in a user-centered and differentiated way—Read How

The relationship between software teams and the business is fundamentally broken. Adopting a practice of demoing working software is an effective solution.

Learn how to set up Husky and Git hooks to automate testing and other development workflows. Share configurations across projects and teams with code over documentation.

Here we explore the challenges of running scheduled jobs in a Spring and Kubernetes environment, including duplicate job runs and queuing of jobs.

Learn how to leverage Stripe to build your online business with 5 tips from Lexie Marinelli. Discover various ways to utilize Stripe for your business.

This blog post provides seven tips to help readers prepare for and pass the Stripe Certified Professional Implementation Architect Exam. Learn about the online payments industry, Stripe's products, and how to create an implementation plan.

Passionate people focused on the craft of delivering business outcomes while getting you to the cloud.

Passionate people focused on the craft of delivering business outcomes while getting you to the cloud.

Passionate people focused on the craft of delivering business outcomes while getting you to the cloud.

Passionate people focused on the craft of delivering business outcomes while getting you to the cloud.

Like fitness, learning new skills in software development is about showing up consistently. Practical tips for building sustainable learning habits.

Pair programming is a way to develop software. It used to involve two software developers sitting down at one workstation and writing code together.

We most often see NFTs used to record ownership of artwork, but the technology has far broader potential. This post explores how NFTs can function as primary keys for ownership across industries — from real estate and music to in-game items.

Two approaches to testing smart contract interactions with external protocols on the blockchain: forking mainnet and mocking contract interfaces.

At Focused Labs, inclusion starts with the people. We interview for empathy, embrace diverse perspectives, and create environments where everyone feels they belong — because collaboration works best when every voice is heard.

Late-night feedings and diaper changes, the 3-4 month sleep regression, teething, and a growth spurt all mean I'm getting less sleep.

Passionate people focused on the craft of delivering business outcomes while getting you to the cloud.

Passionate people focused on the craft of delivering business outcomes while getting you to the cloud.

When validating fields in a Spring Boot controller written in Kotlin, the key is using @field annotations in data classes. Without it, Kotlin applies validation to constructor parameters by default.

Need to jump to a specific directory in macOS Finder? Use the keyboard shortcut ⌘+⇧+G to open Go To Folder and type your path directly.

Spring Security is notoriously hard to debug and test. One simple trick — adding debug = true to the @EnableWebSecurity annotation — gives you significantly better log output. Just don't use it in production.

Outdated dependencies are a common source of bugs and security issues. Here are quick tools to keep your Gradle projects (Use Latest Versions Plugin) and Node.js projects (updtr) current with minimal effort.

Kube jobs running wild? Here are quick kubectl one-liners to delete successful jobs, failed or long-running jobs, or nuke them all at once.

Stripe's documentation on cancelling a subscription at period end isn't entirely current. Instead of the documented approach, you need to update the subscription schedule phases and set end_behavior to cancel. Here's the workaround.

At Focused Labs, our Editorial Board came up with a fun way to encourage blogging: Blog Golf. Like code golf, the smallest post wins. Write in 15 minutes or less, and the most concise post takes the prize.

Sluggish CI/CD pipelines leave developers vulnerable to distraction. If your unit and integration tests live in one .csproj, use dotnet test filters to run only unit tests in CI and integration tests in CD.

The git -p flag enables interactive patch mode, letting you selectively stage, checkout, or commit specific hunks of changes. Once you learn it, you'll want to use it everywhere.

CORS errors can hide the real problem. After spending hours debugging a confusing CORS issue, we discovered a simple Chrome flag that disables web security checks — letting you get past the CORS noise and debug the actual response.

At Focused Labs, we hold a weekly Culture Lunch to host important conversations about work life. Here's what emerged when we sat down to define our culture together, from what we value to how we collaborate.

When combining the Web Audio API with conferencing audio streams for spatial processing, we hit a tricky Chromium bug around echo cancellation. Here's what we learned about the interaction between audio processing pipelines and browser-level echo cancellation.

With Spring, data validation is a breeze in many common use cases (like validating a method's input parameters) - and is highly recommended.

A no-nonsense guide to JVM 14 memory management on Kubernetes, covering container support defaults, MaxRAMPercentage, and practical configuration tips.

Vue has built-in support for key events on input elements, but global shortcuts require a different approach. This post walks through how to implement global keyboard shortcuts in Vue using either low-level JavaScript event listeners or the vue-shortkey plugin.

Our initial Sentry setup with Spring Boot had some issues. Here's the revised approach using sentry.properties and logback-spring.xml that eliminates the boot-up warnings and properly captures errors.

Setting up Sentry in a Spring Boot project is mostly straightforward, but there are a few gotchas. Here's what we ended up with and the caveats to watch out for, including duplicate errors and boot-time warnings.

Tired of manually switching AWS profiles? This short bash function adds an aps command with tab completion for all your existing AWS config profiles. Just drop it in your ~/.bash_profile and go.

Android Jetpack and the androidx.* libraries solved one of the most confusing aspects of Android development while bringing the observable pattern front and center with LiveData and ViewModel. Here's a look at how LiveData compares to RxJava and how it simplifies reactive Android development.

A quick TypeScript snippet for getting typesafe Jest mocks so TypeScript won't complain when you access mock-specific methods on mocked imports.

A practical guide to testing Apollo's reactive variables in Vue.js and GraphQL, covering dynamic query testing strategies beyond the standard Vue Apollo guide.

Passionate people focused on the craft of delivering business outcomes while getting you to the cloud.

Regardless of where you are in the industry, there is a good chance that Serverless functions are a topic you've seen brought up on Reddit.

Andrew Clark's recompose library offers powerful composition tools for React. This post shares practical recipes for getting started with recompose alongside React Native and Apollo GraphQL, with a high impact on code quality.

Explore various Vue Router testing strategies beyond the basics, with techniques for testing navigation guards, dynamic routes, and more.

A step-by-step guide to deploying Concourse CI on AWS with SSL certificates using concourse-up. Get up and running in about 45 minutes.

Code reviews are becoming more and more standard in the software industry at large. Pair programming, on the other hand, is a rarer practice.

Pivotal Web Services (PWS) is a great place to set up push button deployments. It's cheaper than Heroku and has some great features.

Our team at Focused Labs is continuously learning — and continuously sharing those learnings. Get the latest on our technical blog.

Discover how to elevate your AI app with streaming technology. Learn practical tips for seamless idea generation and improve your user experience.

How Focused Labs builds a culture for continuous growth and ensures team members get the skills and opportunities they need.

Master a few key techniques, from vector embeddings to testing patterns for AI, to help you more efficiently build AI chatbots.

Discover how to elevate your AI app with streaming technology. Learn practical tips for seamless idea generation and improve your user experience.